Kush x NL#5, 2nd Grow, 1st Journal - 400w MH/HPS w/ Portable AC

OK! So it's my second time around with this strain that I got out of bagseed from some great stuff my buddy grew. It truly is primo smoke! Last cycle I pulled 8 ounces off of 3 girls in 3 months flat (seed to weed), and the resin production is through the roof on this one. Going for my second try to see if I can increase yield over the last cycle.

Posting this today, but here's a breakdown of what has transpired prior to today's entry:

11/04/08 - Placed 10 viable seeds in a cup of water to soak overnight.

11/06/08 - Placed 8 'popped' seeds into Jiffy pots under flourescent lighting.

11/16/08 - Transplanted Jiffy pots into 1 GAL 'Kort' pots and placed under HID lighting @ 24/0 light regimen for vegatative growth.

Here are a couple early pics showing the seedling stage. Out of the 10 seeds I started with, 8 popped and grew vigorously. More pics to come!!!

lookin forward to seenin this. got my subscribition

Yes, I know that the weak flourescent lighting I used during the seedling stage resulted in very spindly meristems (stalks). I used my homemade supports until the stalks beefed-up some from the HID lighting.

Here is a pic 3 days into the 400w MH 24/0 regimen.

P.S. - Foxfarm Ocean Forest soil, Foxfarm chunky perlite (+/- 25%), all Foxfarm nutes, and distilled water. That's it.

Here's a poor quality picture of the armoire that I modified into a growbox. This is from the last cycle, before I added the portable AC unit to the back of the cabinet. The armoire also locks with a skeleton key.

The AC blows in at the bottom from a vent hole in the back of the cabinet.

The 8" in-line fan at the top exhausts interior spent air out to the right. Not pictured is the can filter that attaches to this during flowering to keep the smell at 0% outside of the cabinet.

The ballast sits on top of the unit and vents to the open air.

It's almost impossible to see, but the cooltube itself is also vented independently of the cabinet. One 6" air intake at the top right and one 6" exhaust vent at the top left of the cabint vents the cooltube with the help of a 6" in-line fan and ducting.

In this picture, you see the vent hole at the bottom covered with activated carbon filter and a powerful fan in front of it to blow the fresh air across the plants leaves and up over the cooltube toward the top, to be exhausted out.

I caulked the entire inside of the cabinet and then painted it with two coats of flat white premium acrylic. Then I put up the mylar a foot above the light's max height (during flowering).

Here's a quick pic of the last harvest this thing turned out, without the portable AC. This is what I'm trying to beat...last time was 0.5625 grams per watt, let's see what happens this time around!

Day 20 from seed:

OK, so being the mega-stoner I am I totally spaced on PH levels and the need to measure them. (It's been 4 months since the last cycle, so I've been out of the game for a while.)

I had been watering with a PH of about 5.2, since I hadn't added any PH-up after the nutrients dropped the PH. Feel kinda stupid, but if this is the only hangup then I can handle this!

You might be able to see some slight discoloration on the top leaves (veins are dark green, but leaves start to yellow from the outside in).

Corrected the PH, and am now using my PH pen again as I should have been.

Check out the FAT meristem and the robust secondary growth on this little guy...

Day 33. This pic shows the plants and, more importantly, the AC vent very clearly.

I have also been FIMing / topping (FIMing...so hard to do right!) the faster growing plants to keep them at roughly the same height as the slower growing plants for an even canopy. Of course this also promotes side-branching, which as you can see I'm a fan of!

Another problem though... As you can see the plants dried out a little too much for a little too long once or twice. The AC unit is really dehumidifying the cabinet much faster than what I'm used to. I have to be more diligent at watering! Between the AC unit and the 25% chunky perlite I used in the Ocean Forest soil, this is now a daily task.

Day 36 - So I've never flushed my plants before, but this time I figured it would be a good thing to do. Plus, with the dehumidifying effect of the AC unit, I'm kinda worried excess salts might build up in the substrate and cause problems. I bought the Clearex, mixed 12 mL into each GAL of distilled, and poured 3/4 GAL over each plant (would have done more but I didn't have as much distilled on hand as I thought...only 7 GALs). I did this in 2 applications about 10 mins apart so that the substrate could absorb some of the liquid before going for total runoff.

I did this in the bathtub and tried to take pics, but the CFL lighting I have in the bathroom just wasn't trying to have it.

2 'before' pics taken in the kitchen, and 1 'after' pic when they got back in their home. ; )

Day 37 - Well, I don't know if a 24 HR period of darkness is required (or even necessary!) before inducing flowering, but I read that this helps the transition into flowering so I do it. I can usually determine sex easily within a week this way.

The last 2 pics before the lights went OUT!

Day 42 - Here are the last 3 pics showing all 8 of the plants. I decided to yank the males now after only 4 days of 12/12 because I let the plants veg until they preflowered and I feel the girls have already showed themselves. There was only 1 plant that I was semi-unsure of, and it finally pushed out some pistils so I'm confident that the rest were male.

3 pics of all 8 plants in the cabinet before getting pulled out, and 1 pic of just the males before getting thrown out.

Nice vegging op ya got there. I can't wait for the dam roots to come out of my clones already!

Day 44 - The air from the AC unit blowing directly on the plants is not only drying out the soil way too fast, but is now causing the plants to bend away from the air flow. I knew this was going to get to be a problem. I've been putting off dealing with this for too long now, so it's time to take action!

The AC vent is stationary (I just butted the AC unit up against the back of the cabinet), and located about 2 feet up the back on the inside. This is great when the plants are young and a foot tall or less, but when they stretch from flowering this is a problem. The AC vent diffuser is also NOT very adjustable .

I decided the best/easiest fix was to 'engineer' a deflector for the AC vent that would route the air flow up the back of the cabinet, where it would get scooped up by the reflector 'wing' to flow directly on the cooltube, rather than allowing it to blow almost straight out toward the plants.

The first pic shows the deflector I made taped up over the AC vent. The other 3 pics show the 3 girls (with the deflector present in the background). These were taken 6 days into 12/12. The plants are S T R E T C H I N G and will probably have doubled in height when it's all said and done.

Day 49 - Here is one pic of all 3 plants, and two closeups of tops by the cooltube.

This is the last day of using the MH bulb.

Day 50 - Switched MH bulb over to HPS. The first 12 days of 12/12 were under MH, as I heard this helps in keeping the stretch down. I wait until they are basically done stretching before I switch the bulb over to HPS.

Day 52 - Could only get 1 decent pic of the heads filling up with my cell phone camera. This is day 14 of flowering. The girls seem to be taking a little longer this time, but they are coming around nicely now. All bud sites are filling up with nice little white pistils. There are about 17 - 20 'heads' on each plant.

Guess it's time to break out the Olympus again!

Day 54.

Broke out the Olympus camera. Here are some more shots, some with the HPS on and some with just the camera flash. ; )

Day 55...or, day 17 of 12/12. Take your pick.

Day 56 from seed, day 18 of 12/12.

Heads are filling up pretty good now. Plant on right (tallest) is 28" tall. The other 2 plants are about 24 - 25".

BTW - forgot to say that I was giving them the Fox Farm soluables also. The first 2 weeks of flowering I gave them the 'Open Sesame' along with Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom, and some Ph up.

Now I am giving them 'Beasie Blooms' along with Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom, Grow big, and some ph up. Just following the FF feeding schedule, except that I forgot to start using the Open Sesame a week before inducing flowering like I should have.